There is something strangely philosophical about waking up at 6 a.m.on a long weekend, brewing coffee that tastes faintly of regret, and deciding, Yes, today is the day I watch a Matt Damon–Ben Affleck movie before sunrise.

This is not self-care.
This is survival.
This is what adulthood has reduced me to.

Enter “The Rip.” Not to be confused with “The Last Duel,” “The Town,” “The Departed,” or any of the other Matt-Ben cinematic cousins that live rent-free in the back of our heads.

This one?
This one is early-morning cinema. Meaning:

-dark lighting
-murky scenes
-half the action looks like it was filmed inside a closet with a flashlight that needed new batteries.

I squinted at my screen like a raccoon seeing daylight for the first time. I should not need night-vision goggles to watch a film that was presumably shot in daylight.


Matt Damon and Ben Affleck who are the original Boston bromance are back together again. At this point, I expect them to just move into a duplex and share a Costco card.

They’ve now made more than a dozen movies together. Their collaborations are becoming so frequent that I’m convinced they’re trying to break the Guinness World Record for “Most Movies Made With Your Best Friend Before Breakfast.”

And honestly?
They look… human.
A little older.
A little softer in the jawline.
A little tired, like the rest of us watching movies at 6 a.m. on a holiday weekend.

I actually find that oddly endearing. Aging is a privilege! Get those crow’s feet, boys. You earned them.


Matt and Ben have had an interesting career arc recently:

-They rarely play heroic roles anymore.
-They lean into morally ambiguous guys.
– Sometimes you can’t tell if you’re supposed to root for them or report them.

This is bold, cinematic, artistic.
This is also confusing at 6 a.m. before caffeine has reached the bloodstream.

In The Rip, the biggest flaw becomes immediately obvious. Who are we supposed to care about?

The movie throws:

– a few red herrings
-some moral dilemmas
-a good guy trying to do good-ish things
-and a plot twist that you see coming unless you’re asleep (which I almost was)

But emotionally?
I felt nothing.
No rooting, no cheering, no yelling at the screen.
Just “Hmm. Okay. Sure.”

At best it’s a solid B movie.
And I’m being generous because I didn’t stand up to turn it off. That counts as praise these days.

One thing I do applaud:
Matt and Ben’s company, Artists Equity, that gives cast and crew real profit participation.

That’s refreshing.
That’s humane.
That’s almost heroic.

Way more heroic than anything happening on screen, honestly.

Ben may not be a hero in real life (and you know he knows it), but at least he and Matt are trying to do something decent behind the scenes. I respect that more than any dramatic monologue delivered in a dimly lit warehouse.


Anyway, at its core, The Rip is a buddy movie, whether it wants to admit it or not. Two old friends navigating a mess together. Very meta.

But the movie forgot something crucial. We, the audience, have to care about someone. Anyone.
Even a houseplant.

And we just don’t.

Because the script didn’t give us reasons to invest emotionally beyond “Oh look, Matt and Ben again. Cute.”


So the question now is whether I will remember it next week?

Eh.

Did it keep me seated?

Yes.
Which in 2026 movie-watching terms is basically an Oscar.